In his first interview with Western media, Iran’s newly elected president said he speaks “with full power” and “complete authority” when he says “under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever.”

“We want to join the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons,” and with those words, attributed to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, an American entry into Syria’s civil war may be averted—but there remain serious obstacles to peace.

History says don’t do it. Most Americans say don’t do it. But President Obama has to punish Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s homicidal regime with a military strike—and hope that history and the people are wrong.

Seeking to clarify his “red line” position on the Syrian government’s possible use of chemical weapons, President Obama said Tuesday that he would consider a “range of options,” but he also urged patience.

The president says he is not eager to dive into Syria’s 17-month-old civil war, but his administration has “put together a range of contingency plans” in case embattled strongman Bashar al-Assad decides to move or use the stockpiles of chemical weapons he is alleged to hold.

We’ve heard this quickening drumbeat before. Last time, it led to the tragic invasion and occupation of Iraq. This time, if we let the drummers provoke us into war with Iran, the consequences will likely be far worse.

In the brief interview he gave NBC before the Super Bowl, President Obama declared, “I’ve been very clear that we’re going to do everything we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and creating an arms race, a nuclear arms race, in a volatile region.” Sounds like a very laudable goal, right? Except for the fact that the nuclear arms race in the Middle East is already under way.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s tortured obit this week on the official end of the neocolonialist disaster that has been the Iraq occupation reminds one that the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner often gets it wrong.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Baghdad on Thursday to preside over a ceremony in which the U.S. Forces-Iraq flag was retired, which means that America’s nine-year occupation of Iraq has ended—at least on paper.

“It is time to turn the page,” President Barack Obama said as he announced the “end” of combat operations in Iraq. Meanwhile, those who brought us that unnecessary war remain committed to such policies and, if returned to power, are likely to carry them out.

Just after a U.S. spy plane was shot down in 1969, President Nixon appears to have ordered nuclear bombers to prepare to attack targets in North Korea, but he quickly changed his mind. More extensive plans (one with the Bush-esque name of “Freedom Drop”) for nuclear strikes on as many as 16 North Korean targets were also devised.

A recent Washington Post story claiming that Saddam Hussein thought about buying nuclear technology from Pakistan has been picked up around the world and is already shaping policy. Unfortunately, it isn’t true.

Fear of a nuclear Iran has generated irrational policies that will only hasten such an outcome. Instead of listening to his own words, the president fell for that old lure, a great power with great bombs that tells others what to do.

On the eve of President Obama’s speech at West Point, one of his more media-savvy supporters, filmmaker Michael Moore, sent out a pre-emptive missive to the would-be “new war president,” predicting the fallout that Obama will face if he follows through with his reported plan to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame writes that “official secrecy and deceptions about our nuclear weapons posture and policies and their possible consequences have threatened the survival of the human species.”

North Korea has come under strong international criticism and sanctions for its missile launch, but as a signatory to the 1966 Outer Space Treaty, it is legally permitted to pursue space launch activity. Besides, where is the pandemonium when Japan, Pakistan, Israel, India, Russia and the U.S. refine, test and launch their own ballistic missiles?

The U.S. led a round of chest-thumping following North Korea’s alleged missile test Sunday, but President Obama also acknowledged that the United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons against others and, as such, has a “moral responsibility” to lead the world toward a nuclear stockpile of zero.

The president must be getting bad advice. Why else would he offer not to build a missile defense system he doesn’t want in exchange for Russia’s help with an Iranian nuclear weapons program that doesn’t exist?

The former vice president tells Politico that there is a “high probability” of a terrorist attack involving “a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind” and that the current administration is “more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States. ...”

In his eyes, there’s “no such thing as short-term history.” It’s true that some presidencies look different after a few decades. But it’s also true that presidential acts can have immediate consequences—and Bush’s eight years are seen as a nadir that will take years to recover from.